IF the Easter Road side secure a win over Hearts tonight, it will take them from finishing 11st last season to joint second in the league table.

PAT FENLON knows his team’s followers will hark back to a glorious day in their past when they hit Tynecastle tonight.

And he’ll enjoy listening to them trying to ram the 40th anniversary of Hibs’ 7-0 victory over Hearts down their rivals’ throats. But the Easter Road boss isn’t all that bothered about history.

Fenlon’s mind is firmly in the present and when it wanders, it moves to the future. He is trying to build something special down in Leith and a victory over Hearts tonight will reinforce his belief that this club is finally moving in the right direction.

And the facts will back him up.

A win for Hibs tonight will take them to 34 points after 22 games – surpassing the 33 points they accumulated all of last season as they battled relegation.

It would take them from their finishing place of 11th last term to joint second as this campaign enters its winter break. If that’s not progress then what is?

Fenlon’s team crosses the city on the back of victory over Celtic at the weekend and he believes this is exactly the kind of game that will ensure his players do not rest on their laurels after that win.

He said: “ It’s a great one to bounce into after beating Celtic. We said after defeat by Ross County two weeks ago we’ve got to be in people’s faces and I thought we did that really well against Celtic.

“Going to Tynecastle is going to be the same. Our workrate is going to have to be as big as it was for the Celtic game.

“Celtic at home and Hearts away are two big games for us this season.

“I don’t think you ever enjoy them as a coach, I have to be honest. Saturday, probably half an hour after the game, you come down and say, ‘That was good’. But whether enjoyment is the right word I’m not too sure.

“As soon as Saturday was over, and that initial half-hour period, you were thinking ‘Well, who’s next and how do we prepare for that one?’ So I think you can enjoy it for a shorter period of time probably than most people.”

Hearts are next and while the three points would mean the world to Hibs’ fans, Fenlon is looking at a bigger picture than local rivalry. He wants proof that he is making a difference to this success-starved club and a look at the league table would indicate he is doing that.

He added: “We look at it as can we make up a bit of ground on the teams above us? Can we get beyond our points tally for the whole of last season if we win? That’s obviously a target.

“Supporters will always look at it in a different way from a manager and players. It probably means a hell of a lot more to them in the bigger picture.

“We want to make sure we focus on trying to pick up three points. That’s really important for us, and if we pick up three points that will get us closer to the teams ahead of us, hopefully.

“I think things like the 7-0 victory are for supporters to enjoy and maybe slag others off and have a bit of banter over.

“As players if you start to look back too many times you can get lost. So I think it’s important we look forward.

“We think we’ve changed this club around and we want to continue to do that. And this game is another step on the ladder towards doing that. If we can go there and win the game it just helps all of the rebuilding process.

“I think we have made great strides and there have been a couple of times when we have gone back a couple of steps. But I think in general we’ve been moving forward.”

Fenlon concedes, though, that the atmosphere tonight will be a little bit out of the ordinary. He said: “It can be tasty in the away dugout but I’m looking forward to it.

“I’ve said before you want to go to places like Tynecastle and win. You want to measure yourself against good sides and go into their backyard and try to take the points. That’s what it’s about.

“And when we get to the end of the season we can judge where we are as a club. But days like this and the response we showed against Celtic after being beaten by Ross County is important.

“How you respond to certain issues is important. And when you look back over the course of a season those are the things you look at to see where you are.”

Hibs beat Hearts the last time the teams met, in the Scottish Cup in December, but Fenlon doesn’t believe his players’ attitude has changed in the wake of that victory – because most of them weren’t part of the squad that lost last season’s cup final 5-1 or had waited since May 2009 for their last derby victory.

He said: “I don’t think for this group of players it was a monkey off their backs. Maybe for the general club it might have been – for the players I don’t think it was.

“There were a lot of new players who hadn’t played in games against Hearts before – they probably looked on it as another game. In a derby game obviously they know what it means to the supporters, but from their point of view it’s not really relevant to what’s gone on previously.

“It does help that a lot of them are new to the scenario of playing Hearts and they’ve had a decent start against them.”

A win or even a draw tonight will go a little bit further towards proving that Hibs really are moving out of a prolonged period of derby darkness.